FIC: "Unkind Remedies" (PG)
Title: "Unkind Remedies"
Type: Fic
Age-Range Category: Three
Characters: Severus Snape, original Slytherin students, original Slytherin portraits
Author: iulia_linnea
Beta(s): Shog
Rating: PG
Summary: "Unkind remedies" help Severus to get by as a young professor.
"What're you doing with that 'hammer'," Johnson?" Severus heard Spitwit ask, as he turned the corner.
Arse, he thought, noting the Seventh Year's emphasis on the tool as he hastily secreted his flask.
"I'm going to use the 'ham uh' for what we in the States like to call 'percussive maintenance'-on this old door hinge, or your head. Take your pick, asshole."
Spitwit was slighter and shorter than Johnson, who towered over most of the boys in his year, his fellow Fifth Years.
"Ah, why'd you have to be such a-"
Johnson turned his attention from the supply closet door to Spitwit, raising the hammer as he did so. "Your head, then?"
"Enough!"
The hammer clattered to the floor and the boys made as if to run, only to find themselves Stuck, Johnson, to the floor, and Spitwit, to the wall. Severus lowered his wand and glared at the Slytherins, attempting to control his breathing. It was his first disciplinary action on rounds since he'd begun teaching, and he was terrified of what he'd just done.
"Professor! Johnson here was threa-"
"Shut it," Severus snapped, flicking his wand at the boy's mouth.
Spitwit's pale face lost any trace of colour at all.
"It'll be temporary, the not being able to speak," Johnson said, crossing his arms.
"Not only do I find the two of you out of bed after curfew, but roaming the halls for the purposes of damaging property and each other, it seems. Ten points from Slytherin, each."
"Aw, Professor Snape, please. I can explain. This door sticks."
"And 'percussive maintenance' is the answer?" Severus asked Johnson.
"Well, it's better than kinetic disassembly." Johnson grinned. "Er, what I mean is that I don't always have good wand control, and-"
Spitwit, still unable to speak, nevertheless generated a rude sub-vocalisation.
"It needs new hinges, the door, I mean."
"And do you, Johnson, have new hinges?"
"I do, sir! I made them in Transfiguration. May I?" he asked, gesturing towards his pockets.
Severus Unstuck Johnson's feet. "Knocking the old hinges off with a hammer would be better than blowing them off, but have you considered that once you leave Hogwarts, your magic will fade?"
"I imagine it'll just be that much stronger, sir."
"No, Johnson. I mean to say that your Transfigured hinges-Transfigured from what, exactly?"
"Er, from teacups, sir."
"Will come crashing down, break, and the door will fall open-causing a great many mouldering bunches of dried herbs and rusting cauldrons to spill out into the corridor."
"Oh! Oh, no, sir! My Transfigurations hold, I swear. I'd have to die for them to fail."
Spitwit generated yet more sub-vocalisations from the wall upon which he remained Stuck.
Curious to hear what he had to say, Severus cast, "Finite!"
"When I get off this wall, I can help you with that!"
Ignoring the boy's empty threat, Severus spoke. "You wish to assist Johnson in the repair of every old and damaged hinge in the dungeons, Spitwit? I'm impressed by your dedication to the school." Severus walked forth until he was nose to nose with the boy. "You will work well with him, then, and in a respectful manner, to complete the repairs and replacements on this level of the castle by tomorrow evening at this time-or I'll hold you back from leaving school until you've serviced Hogwarts' every hinge."
With a twitch of Severus' fingers, Spitwit unceremoniously dropped to the floor. Severus turned back to Johnson.
"Well?"
"Oh, er, sure, I mean, yeah. Here we go!"
With those words, Johnson tapped at the hinge before him until it cracked and fell to pieces, and then he lifted a new one into its place and set charmed screws to dance and twist their way from his pockets and into the door.
"Ha! That worked! I did it!"
"I thought your magic always worked, you-"
Severus glared at Spitwit, who fell silent.
"That's my Transfiguration that does, you git! This spell's new to me. I've only ever seen my grandmother use it to put things together."
"Your grandmother?" asked Spitwit.
"Yes, my grandmother. She raised me."
"Your . . . grandmother raised you?"
"You got a problem with that, Spit?"
Severus sighed. "Gentlemen."
"He started it!" Johnson insisted.
"Did not!"
"You are a Seventh Year," Severus said to Spitwit, "and you," he told them both, "are Slytherins. Your behaviour is disappointing and weak."
He felt like an idiot, speaking thus, and quite out of his depth. He fervently hoped that it did not show.
"He's always picking on me, sir. I'm sick of it!"
"He's such a know-it-all prat!" Spitwit whinged.
"Am not!"
"Are-"
"ENOUGH!"
Both boys started and backed away from Severus, who was fervently trying not to back away from himself in the wake of having only that moment found what he realised was his own voice of authority.
That was Teacher Voice! I have Teacher Voice!
To Severus' shock, both boys began to babble.
"Sorry, sir, but-"
"I didn't mean to-"
"It is half past eleven. There are tens of doors in the dungeons in need of new hinges. With the exception of the ones holding up the singing doors to the girls' dormitory-and let me remind you that you do not want to hear that particular song on pain of something much worse than death-you have until tomorrow evening at this time to effect replacements and repairs. I shall inform your other professors that you will not be attending classes, but I expect you to catch up on what you miss by this weekend's end. Is. That. Clear?"
Johnson cleared his throat. "'This weekend's end', sir?"
"He means by Sunday night," Spitwit retorted.
"I know that! I just-"
Severus interrupted them. "I shall ask again: have I been quite clear?"
"Yes, er, sir!"
"Yes, sir, Professor Snape!"
"Then get to it!" Severus turned on his heel, but stopped in an alcove once he was out of sight to listen.
"My grandmum, I, I live with my grandmum, too."
"Do you?" asked Johnson.
"Yes. My parents, they . . . ."
"They died?" asked Johnson.
"No, they . . . they got caught performing Dark magic on, well, performing Dark magic. I don't really have the details."
"Is that why you're such a screw up in Transfiguration," said Johnson, "because you don't want to be good at magic like your parents?"
"Don't you listen? I just said Dark magic! And no one wants to be good at that anymore!"
"Yeah, so they got into some bad shit, but you don't have to. Stop trying to live up to your name and just be yourself-unless that really is to be a dick. No one likes a dick, Spit."
Spitwit snorted. "Yes, spitting is rude, I agree."
"You know what I mean!" exclaimed Johnson. "Now come on, we need more teacups."
"We don't have to Transfigure teacups, we can use anything. I'll bet we could find . . . ."
Severus released the breath he'd been holding as the boys walked away from him. They listened to me! They're doing what I told them to do!
It was a heady feeling, and one he'd not been expecting to feel. He was a First Year, himself, from a certain point of view, and teaching was nothing to having been thrust into the role of Head of Slytherin House so young, but then, Professor Slughorn's "leave of absence" had become a pragmatic retirement when he had failed to return to the school.
"Temporary, my arse," Severus muttered, still bitter about having had to replace the man.
He wasn't the youngest head of house in Hogwarts' history-Everard Prince, no relation, had held that honour before him-but he was young and inexperienced and grief-stricken enough to find the task onerous. If not for several draughts of his own design he would not have been able to function.
They listened to me. They did! thought Severus, concentrating upon that victory rather than on the source of his grief as he continued upon his rounds. "I can do this! I am doing this!"
"Doing what, my darling?" an Elizabethan-era portrait asked him.
"Oh, er, forgive me, madam."
"Of course I do, dear. You're acquitting yourself well, young Slytherin."
"Speak for yourself," a hunter shouted, from his frame. "I've a fox to hunt. Can't you keep those boys in their dormitory? They make a dreadful noise!"
"And you do not, yourself, by bleating thus about the complaints of children?"
"Lady, mind your mouth!"
"Mind your own, you old bully!" snapped Severus, "Or would you enjoy a wash of turpentine?"
"You go too far, sir!"
"Oh, my gracious lord," said the lady, "indeed, you do. Pray speak no more of such . . . unkind remedies."
His heart beating hard again at his own temerity, Severus took a sip from his flask before replying to her. "As you wish, madam."
"Be off on your rounds m-master," the hunter bade Severus. "We shall mind ourselves."
"See that you do," Severus told him, satisfied to hear the catch in the portrait's voice.
Severus felt afraid all the time and so had practiced a harsh demeanor in front of his mirror because he could not allow himself to project anything other than an air of authority, and clearly, his practice had paid off because the portraits and his Slytherins now appeared to fear him.
Fear wasn't, of course, the respect he so badly craved, but until he earned that, he would take it, take it and use it the way he used his own "unkind remedies" so that he could teach and guide and wait.
I must be prepared for the moment of my atonement. I must not fail to act when it arrives.
"One day, Lily, I will do right by your son. I hope . . . I hope it will be enough."